


Cruel Intentions

by mintycanoodles



Category: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley
Genre: (Well he likes them a little bit), M/M, Mori Does Not Like Them, Teasing, Thaniel has Ideas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:09:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23206765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintycanoodles/pseuds/mintycanoodles
Summary: Mori can feel things before they’re done to him. Thaniel didn’t know that. When he realizes, an idea occurs to him. A thought experiment, if you will. One that Mori is less than pleased to be the subject of.
Relationships: Keita Mori/Thaniel Steepleton
Comments: 5
Kudos: 66





	Cruel Intentions

The first time Thaniel does it it’s completely by accident. He’s become more aware of Mori by now, in more than one sense, in the year and a half it’s been since life has settled in the house on Filigree Street. There’s patterns to his own behavior, to Mori’s, steady ebbs and flows to their routines. Thaniel wakes, nearly always after Mori, with just enough time for a light breakfast, fresh tea, a quick peck to his landlord’s cheek, and then it’s off to the office. 

Evenings see Mori having dinner on the table precisely ten minutes after Thaniel is due to arrive home, they eat, with Six joining them more often than not. Thaniel cleans, Mori retires to the living room to work on repairs to Katsu, who’s been almost completely made whole by now, but he’s still got a tentacle missing. Thaniel joins him when he’s done and plays piano, reads, or simply sits and watches Mori. 

They head upstairs together after a while. Sometimes to the same room, sometimes not. The routine leaves space for a deviation or two. 

Thaniel would give nearly anything to have this routine never disturbed. 

This particular morning, a particularly sticky home office case is occupying most of Thaniel’s attention, so he gets through breakfast with very little to say in response to Mori and he readies to leave mostly absentmindedly. Mori seems to sense his distraction and doesn’t take it too much to heart. He softly reminds Thaniel where he’d left his scarf the night before, and tells him the train is running a little behind so not to worry about missing it. Thaniel brings his mind back from the stratosphere momentarily to remember to perform his favorite morning ritual - pressing his parting kiss to Mori - when a flash of copper by his heel nearly derails him. 

Katsu scuttles by with a stray sock in hand - tentacle - and Thaniel tutts as the cephalopod goes. “Watch it,” he warns. As if the creature could hear him. Or would listen, if he could. 

“Might be late tonight, this mess at the office has been a nightmare to sort out,” Thaniel says, not going into terrible detail. He turns to shrug apologetically to his landlord when he catches it - the slight downturn of Mori’s expression. The man grunts out a soft dismissal before turning back to his work, but Thaniel is sure of what he’d seen. The man had looked put out, nearly petulant. Bordering on scowling. 

Thaniel catches the time on one of the many working clocks in the room and remembers he’s in a hurry. He says his goodbyes and is off, brushing the moment off. 

Mori must have been annoyed at the distraction. Thaniel can’t see any other reason for it. 

\---

One night, a day or two later, Thaniel notices it again. Thaniel is setting the dinner table for the three of them, Six is around tonight. She’s still outside terrorizing the Haverly boys at the moment and Thaniel can hear the panicked shrieks of the boys. She’s smaller than them and outnumbered, but she’s quicker and cleverer and she’s more than rising to their challenge. Thaniel is more than a little bit proud. In a moment, he’ll go out to call her in for washing up, but before then the urge strikes him and Thaniel moves to press a kiss to Mori’s shoulder as the man finishes slicing bread. Mori, in his barely perceptible way, shifts and softens, waiting for it. 

However, just then, Six abruptly decides to be done with the Haverly boys and changes her mind about the rock she’d been about to lob at them. She decides to skip in and see what’s for dinner instead. She pokes her head through the kitchen door a moment later, just a heartbeat before Thaniel’s been able to satisfy his urging. Thaniel reels back all at once, going just a little pink, trajectory shifting to bring Six a damp washcloth for her bare and muddy feet. 

Mori isn’t discreet about it this time. He deflates considerably. In fact, he downright scowls into the loaf, giving the last slice an almost savage sawing off. Thaniel catches this, although Mori is shaking it off a moment later and bringing the food to the table congenially. He asks Six about her recent conquest. Six tells him she’d gotten two of the boys in the creek easy, and she’s more than confident she’ll get three next time. He says nothing to Thaniel, the whole thing forgotten apparently. 

Nevertheless, Thaniel files away the information for later. 

\---

The thought takes a while to percolate in the back of his mind, but several days later, Thaniel has half a theory taking form. It’s Saturday, and Thaniel spends his Saturdays at the piano usually. Or out poking around the garden, or reading. Or doing nothing at all but basking in the delicacy of having nothing urgent to do. This Saturday he’s spending on the armchair by the fire, watching Mori through the workshop door carefully fitting together a lovely mantlepiece clock. There’s a book in Thaniel’s lap he’s been trying to read, but it’s dull, and Mori is many times more interesting to watch when he gets like this. Mori is absorbed in his work, the world has fallen away from him. Not even Katsu clunking around his shelves seems to disturb him. 

Thaniel finds him fascinating to watch like this, half convinced that should Thaniel get up and start dancing like a madman around him, Mori wouldn’t so much as blink. 

Mori laughs. It’s a quiet noise, one it seems he hadn’t intended on letting out. He cuts a small look to Thaniel through the door as if to say _please don’t._ Thaniel chuckles himself, and as the pair of them melt back into what they’d been doing, a thought tickles the back of Thaniel’s mind. The other night before dinner, the morning he’d nearly tripped on Katsu. _Just intend it_ , Mori had once told him. Thaniel’s half baked theory coalesces into a rather mischievous idea with a sudden bright yellow pop. 

He decides that in a few moments, he’s going to get up, cross the room, pull Keita up by his collar and give the man the fiercest kiss Thaniel’s ever given him. He contemplates adding a little tongue action for good measure. A healthy amount of groping is also considered. 

The effect is immediate. Mori stiffens, head snapping up. His elbow knocks over a tin of spare clockwork parts. The second he reacts, Thaniel changes his mind, deciding he’s perfectly comfortable where he is. 

Mori turns and _glowers_ at him. To Thaniel’s immense delight, there’s a peppering of pale pink flushing across Mori’s cheekbones. 

“That’s _utterly_ beneath you,” Mori says stiffly, his voice gone a steely, seething grey. The man can’t quite fight back the flush rising to his cheeks, however, and Thaniel can’t help the bubble of a snort that rises. 

Mori is _not_ impressed with him. 

But that doesn’t stop Thaniel from further contemplation and consideration on his newfound discovery, or ways to further test it. 

\--- 

It’s easiest to do it in the morning, when the general hurry to get out the door occupies the majority of his thoughts. Planning his next move in the back of his mind without actually intending anything concretely enough to give himself away is a mental challenge. Thaniel’s nearly getting a headache from it. 

Mori’s been stiff around him lately. Thaniel almost feels bad about the whole thing, but Thaniel can’t help himself. He intends another kiss to Mori’s neck as the man makes tea; he changes his mind as soon as he sees Mori absentmindedly turn to it. When it clicks for Mori Thaniel’s doing it again, the man levels him with a warning glare. Thaniel reads his morning paper in feigned innocence, but it was such a fleeting thought Mori already can’t remember what he was irked at Thaniel for in the first place. 

Thaniel might leave it there for the morning, but there’s something so delicious about testing the boundaries of this thing, that, again, he can’t really help himself. 

Mori’s pouring the tea for the both of them, their cups set on a tray with a few scones. Thaniel folds the corner of his paper down, watching the man. 

Thaniel thinks about getting up, pressing himself against the man, running hands down his side, his front, pressing a hand to his navel. He thinks about snaking another to his firm backside and giving it a gratuitous squeeze. 

He watches his intentions sink in. Mori’s hand shakes on the teapot and he quickly sets it down. He’s flushing again, bright red burning across his cheekbones. Thaniel holds out to the thought as long as possible. _In another second I’ll get up,_ he firmly thinks to himself, picturing his movements with as much fervent clarity he can muster. 

Then, he lets it go, changes his mind. Folds the corner of his paper back up and resumes skimming the day’s stories. 

Mori nearly hits him with a skillet. 

\--

That night, Mori is in his room by the time Thaniel gets home. The house is quiet, Six isn’t around tonight. It’s cold downstairs and Thaniel feels duly cowed when he sees there’s nothing but a cold dinner set out for him of some bread and an uncut hunk of cheese. Katsu’s in his tank on the sill, and even the small octopus seems to have been punished alongside him, as there’s a plate on his tank to keep him grounded for the night. At the sight of poor Katsu so wrongfully imprisoned, Thaniel really does feel a twinge of guilt. 

Thaniel lets Katsu free with an apology the octopus does not seem keen on accepting. He plonks off the counter and directly onto Thaniel’s foot and then he’s scuttling away. Thaniel dutifully eats his cold dinner in silence. There’s a note under his napkin, written in delicate Japanese. 

_Stop it._

Thaniel should let himself wallow in guilt a little while longer to appease Mori, but a bright pink feeling is bubbling up in his chest again. He smiles at the empty table, despite himself. He glances upwards to the stairs, but he keeps his mind blank. 

He finishes his dinner, clears his plate. He makes sure Katsu isn’t getting into anything he really shouldn’t, but the octopus is hunkered down under the armchair for the night. 

Thaniel loosens his tie as he takes the stairs, coming to a stop at the landing. Mori’s door is shut. Possibly locked. Probably not. Thaniel smiles. He closes his eyes. 

He intends on entering, slipping into Mori’s bed. He intends on assaulting the man’s sleeping form in the most debauched ways he can possibly think of, using his mouth to worship the man, exploring every inch of him with dedication and fervor. Thaniel digs deep into his admittedly shallow pool of sexual references. His library is not a large one, but he’s got a pretty good imagination and there are a few lads at the office with pretty big mouths and pretty boastful stories of their conquests. Thaniel conjures up a few images that he surprises even himself with. 

He hears a sudden thump inside Mori’s room, the bedside dresser possibly. A light comes on that he can see spill through the gap at the bottom of the door. He hears angry feet meeting the hard wood floor. 

Before he can escape, a livid Mori is at the door, wrenching it open. He's scowling, but blushing such a deep burgundy Thaniel has a great deal of trouble resisting the urge to laugh.

“Enough,” Mori says thickly, and Thaniel’s hands raise in surrender. Mori hauls him into the bedroom. He spends the entire night having Thaniel make good on his intentions.

**Author's Note:**

> team what up i'm new here and this ain't beta read but i'm stuck at home and what else am I gonna do during this quarantine but write some things.


End file.
